


Acts of Mercy

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Spirit Healer Hawke [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Act Of Mercy (Dragon Age), Blood Magic, Circle of Magi, Complicated Relationships, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mage-Templar Dynamics (Dragon Age), Pre-Relationship, Spirit Healer Hawke (Dragon Age), Spirits, Templars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 19:22:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21086516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Anders is still, slowly, getting the measure of Hawke.





	Acts of Mercy

Ser Thrask was waiting at the entrance to the cavern, and Hawke was moving slowly. He did that, Anders had noticed – he moved slowly, walked with purpose, his head high, like he was a noble. Anders couldn’t help but wonder, couldn’t help but _crave_ to know, if he walked like that in the Fade, too, and he wondered if that desire was his own, or Justice’s.

There were few mages who so comfortably communed with spirits, but Hawke _did_, he did, and Anders still couldn’t get over it, the very idea of it, that this man, that he, too--

“Ser Thrask,” Hawke said quietly, evenly. “I hope we haven’t kept you waiting long.”

“No, serah,” Thrask said, looking relieved, and Anders kept his distance, standing in line with Merrill behind Hawke and Varric, who stood much closer. He didn’t miss the way Thrask’s brightly blue gaze flitted between the three of their staves, but then he looked back at Hawke’s face.

It was a good sign, looking at Hawke’s face.

“I know that you would do mages… kindness,” Thrask said. “Within these caverns are runaways from the Circle of Starkhaven, which recently collapsed. Their phylacteries were destroyed, and they know that they cannot be tracked, if they make it free, I— If I go in there, they’ll fight.”

“Of course,” Hawke said.

“_Please_, serah,” Thrask said urgently. “If you’ll just convince them to come back to the Circle, we can keep them safe.”

“Safe from whom?” Hawke asked.

There was no change in his tone. No modulation, no raising in volume or change in pitch. Anders couldn't see his face, but he would bet his expression hadn't even changed. 

"Serah," Thrask said seriously, "if these mages aren't taken home, they'll be apostates, hunted, they'll be at risk from--" 

"Templars," Hawke said. "Yes?" 

Thrask looked at the sand beneath their feet. 

"Just wanted it admitted," Hawke murmured. "We'll go inside. Excuse us." 

Anders hadn't ever known a mage who gave orders so smoothly as Hawke, except perhaps for the Hero of Ferelden. Amell had commanded the same respect, too, had been smooth - they even looked alike, Anders thought, both handsome with the same jaw, same dark hair, dark beards. 

The cave was dark inside, but not as dark as it could be - a few lanterns had smashed, but some were still shining, and between Hawke, Merrill, and Anders, they conjured more than enough light to move by. 

They felled a few walking corpses, which was never a good sign. Spiders were standard for a cave like this, but walking corpses in an area so devoid of latent magic was unnatural, and a sign of desperation on the part of the mages ahead of them. 

It was the scream that made Hawke run forward, and the four of them surrounded the young man as the corpses sprouted from the ground like unholy shoots, moving unnaturally in the way that only corpses reanimated did. Hawke's expression was one of grim determination as he blasted each with ice, then punching through at the crucial points along the spine or the rib cage to send them shattering to the ground. 

The boy between them was gasping, panicking, and Hawke didn't look at him immediately, so Anders stepped forward to check him for injuries, gently touching his shoulder to calm down. 

Hawke was sticking out his tongue and making a face, like he didn't like what he was tasting, and he turned to look at Merrill, who was looking around the cave with an expression of concerned curiosity. When their gazes met, they shared a nod. "Blood magic," they said together. 

"What, you taste it?" Varric asked. 

"My father taught me to focus on how magic felt on my most sensitive skin. It's either my tongue, or I hitch up my skirts," Hawke said, and Anders watched the young mage between them almost laugh, relaxing a little. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Alain,” he said softly, and Hawke nodded his head. "I didn't want to stay, when I saw he was doing blood magic," the boy said, but he clutched at Anders' sleeve as he said it, and Anders gripped his shoulder a little tighter, a promise not to let go. 

"He?" 

"Decimus," the boy said falteringly. How old was he? Sixteen? Seventeen? Anders felt the anger burn in his chest, felt Justice flickering at the edge of his consciousness, that any child should be so frightened, so scared, so—

"He's one of the mages from the Starkhaven Circle, with you," Hawke said gently, "yes?" 

"Yeah," the boy said. "Ser, please, I'm not a blood mage, I swear." 

"It's alright, da'len," Merrill said softly. "Remember what we just did, he and I? We can tell. You're not in trouble." 

"Funny of you to say that," Anders muttered, and Hawke gave him a warning glare.

"I just want to go back to the Circle!" the boy said desperately, and Anders heart ached. 

"You can if you wish," Hawke murmured. "We're going to speak with the other mages, but Ser Thrask is at the entrance of the cavern. We've cleared the path already." 

"Thank you," the boy said, and he ran fast. Anders felt the ghost of his robe under his hand. 

"We'll see more corpses, then, if we face Decimus," Hawke murmured. "Anders, Merrill, this isn't traditional necromancy. The corpses are raised by blood magic, not by latent arcane energy." 

"So?" Anders asked, and Hawke grinned. 

His teeth were white, his lips plump, and on his usually solemn face, the smile dazzled. Anders wondered what it would be like to kiss him, and he felt the immediate surge of frustration from Justice, that he should let himself be distracted by something so unimportant. 

"So, if it comes to a fight, let me go first. Be on the defensive, leave the offence to me. Varric, you stay behind me, and behind their shields." 

"Am I scared right now, or a little titillated?" Varric asked the air, and Hawke smiled slightly as he led the way forward. 

“I don’t know, Varric,” Hawke murmured. “Maybe it’s a bit of both.”

They moved more slowly through the caverns, here, and they put down a few more spiders - they were always so ridiculously big – and then they came out into the place where the caverns broadened outward, showing shacks shoring up the ceiling, not entirely dissimilar to Darktown, in all honesty. 

“Templars!” was the hoarse shout as soon as they crossed into the room. “Templars, defend yourselves!”

“We’re not templars!” Hawke called out, his voice echoing off the ceiling, and the young mages all froze with their staves to hand, looking toward them as Hawke took a few steps forward, his staff aloft. “Look at our staves, look at our robes. We’re three mages and a dwarf, we’re no threat to you.”

Anders looked around the room, at the various apostates, some of them shivering in the cold of the cave. There had to be over a dozen of them, none of them with real coats on, huddled together and trying their best to keep one another warm; a few other mages stood with their heads high… They were older, noticeably older, than the bulk of the mages, who all looked to be in their early twenties at the eldest – these were in their thirties, and in the middle of them a mage in his forties, his gingery beard beginning to give way to grey in places.

“Decimus, I presume,” Hawke said, and the ginger one turned rapidly on his feet, his grip tight on his staff, his lip curled.

“Why are you here?” he demanded. “We will be _free_, you scum, we—”

“Peace,” Hawke said. “My name is Hawke. We’re from Kirkwall – we just want to help. Thrask wanted me to convince you to return to the Circle. Do you want to go back?”

“No,” said a woman at Decimus’ shoulder, shaking her head. “Serah, it was our chance for freedom when our phylacteries were destroyed.”

“What’s the plan? Move farther north, to Nevarra, Rivain? The attitude to mages up that way is a lot less strict than it is down here, it’s easier to go without being detected.”

The woman nodded her head, but Decimus shoved his way forward, standing directly before Hawke. He was shorter than him by half a head, and Anders could see that Decimus hadn’t accounted for it, that he didn’t like it.

“You’re just here to trick us,” Decimus growled. Anders could see the madness in his eyes, see his hands shaking, his body stiff, his skin… His wrists were cut to pieces, scarring all over the skin where it showed under his blood-stained sleeves, and even as he looked, the skin rippled.

“Is that what they’re telling you?” Hawke asked softly, not without sympathy. “I can hear them chattering from here, tugging at you like a demanding child tugs at your robe – are they telling you I’m trying to trick you? You know they’re just frightened you’ll stop with the blood magic, Decimus. You know what they’re like. They know they have a foothold in you, and they’re worried I might take it away.”

For just a moment, Decimus looked… calmer. More put-together. Still exhausted, yes, exhausted and overwrought, but he looked like he was his own man.

When the frantic anxiety came back, it roared to life, and Decimus raised his staff.

“No!” cried out the woman, but Decimus’ blood poured down his wrists and spattered on the ground as he raised his staff, and Hawke remained stock still, not even looking at the corpses as they raised shudderingly from the ground about their feet. Anders pulled in closer with Merrill, making sure they had Varric shielded behind them, and they moved to put a few of the young apostates behind their shielding too.

“Decimus,” Hawke said, _beseeched_. “Let me help you, I want you to be free—”

“You’re lying! You’re lying, liar, lying templar scum!”

“Decimus—”

“Don’t say my name!”

“Friend—”

More blood burst out from the cuts on Decimus’ wrists, sprayed as though huge pressure were being applied, and Anders saw some of it catch Hawke’s cheek, the same colour as the scar that ripped over his nose.

Hawke’s face was resigned, and Anders watched as he picked up his hands.

He felt the pull on the Fade as Hawke closed his eyes, and green light rushed over Hawke’s skin. It was… _nice_, to share a specialisation. Even if Hawke wasn’t a spirit healer quite the way that Anders was, that he held that area of study in such high regard was a comfort, and it was more than pleasant to be able to sit together and speak at length about it – even in the Circle, people had looked at spirit healing in the way they did at necromancy or other uncommon fields of magic, as if they were halfway to blood magic already.

But healing, why…?

Hawke spread his hands, throwing out healing energy to the corpses, and Anders watched in sickened horror at the way new flesh grew on their bones and then ripped, unable to find purchase on the old, dead bones; he watched nerves sprout only to tangle around their necks and waists and joints; he watched the bones splinter as they tried to repair themselves under the purifying light.

Each corpse dropped, one-by-one, and Decimus cried out, reached to lash out with more magic, but Hawke touched his hand.

There was a loud noise, like a scream, and Anders stared at the way the cuts on the blood mage’s wrists heal spontaneously, lit as if from the inside with a bright glow, and Decimus struggled, choke, fell forward.

“No!” he cried. “No, no—”

“It’s alright,” Hawke said, catching him by the jaw and lowering him gently to the ground, struggling, trying to lash out. “I have you, Decimus, it’s alright.”

Hawke’s hands steamed. If it hurt, he didn’t show it.

“Is he dead?” asked the woman, quaveringly.

“He will be,” Hawke said, his voice quiet, his expression full of regret. Anders could see how tenderly he held the fallen mage, letting Decimus drop limply to the floor, leaned against Hawke’s chest. “He’s promised too many demons too much. They all want a piece of the pie.”

“He did it for _me_,” the woman said, her eyes brimming with tears. “For _us_.”

“What’s your name?” Anders asked.

“Grace,” she said. “We just wanted to get away, we… Let us go.”

“We will,” Hawke said. “But… Decimus can’t come with you. He’s dying. You bring him with you, he’ll only put you at risk.”

“He’s half-mad,” Merrill said, shaking her head, when Grace looked furious. “His hold on his own body is already weak. Hawke is right.”

“You’ll have to kill the templar,” Grace said. “If you kill Thrask, we can all get away, we can take Decimus with us, he—”

“I’m not going to kill Thrask,” Hawke said, shaking his head. “He’s one of the few templars that would think to show any mage mercy – I’m not going to kill one of the few allies mages might have within the Circle.” Before Anders could voice his anger, Hawke added, “Most of those templars are rabid dogs. That Thrask has any capacity for kindness at all sets him a far height above the rest.”

Anders faltered. 

“But,” Hawke said, “I can tell him you’re dead. That Decimus killed you all in a fit of rage.”

“They’ll make him Tranquil,” said a young mage, shuddering in horror.

“He won’t survive that long,” Hawke murmured, shaking his head. “And even if he was going to, I’d put him down before he’d have to suffer that.”

“Then—” Grace said. “Then you’ll kill him. Either way, you’re responsible for his death.”

“If it pleases you to think so,” Hawke said. “I’m sorry. Wait here, all of you. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to exit. Merrill, will you wait with them? Make sure no one is injured, and if anyone is, we’ll help when the coast is clear. Anders, leave your staff.”

_ No _ , Anders felt Justice protest, but he obeyed, setting his staff aside, and they walked alongside Hawke. He carried Decimus in his arms, his own staff slung on his back, and Anders followed closely, feeling… Decimus’ head lolled, but Anders could see the scars on his wrists, not as healed as he’d thought. 

They’d closed, but the scarring of them was ragged and shiny pink, and he felt a little bit sick, just looking at him. 

“Where are they?” another templar was demanding of Thrask. “You fucking soft cunt, Thrask, you—”

“They’re dead,” Hawke said as he exited, and the two templars looked at him… Poor Alain was all but clinging behind Thrask’s shoulder, visibly flinching away from the new one. “This one, he’s a blood mage, went _mad_. Seemed to think that if he sacrificed his friends, he might make it to freedom.”

“Liar,” snapped the templar.

“Karras!” Thrask protested.

“With respect, Ser Templar, I have no patience for this today. My name is Enchanter Hawke, and this is Professor Nordbotten. We’re of the Anderfels Circle.”

“The Knight Commander forgot to inform you we’d be assisting, obviously,” Varric said dryly, and not for the first time, Anders marvelled at how quickly the two of them played off one another, building a lie between them like it was the easiest thing in the world. No wonder Hawke had never been captured by a Circle, when he could bluff so well. “We’ve conducted our investigation as thoroughly as we know how, and you know what we’re seeing? A lot of blood, and a lot of corpses.”

“This mage,” Hawke said, and despite the scorn in his tone, he was gentle as he passed Decimus to Thrask, “has painted that cave with slaughter. My colleagues and I need to make sure there’s no damage to the Veil – you men would be wasted in there, and you’d only be put at more risk. You’d be well of chasing… What the fuck was his name? McCullough? McClaren?”

“He just called himself _Mac_,” Varric said. “Could’ve been anything, from Starkhaven. He took off down the coast from one of the side tunnels, made it cave in afterward. West?”

“West, maybe north-west, on the other side of this cavern,” Hawke said, shrugging. “We couldn’t chase after him.”

Thrask looked stunned, but Karras was nodding his head, slowly.

“Apologies, Enchanter, Professor. We’ll pursue the one that escaped. Thank you, for your assistance.”

“Thank _you_, Ser Templar. Will you be taking the blood mage back to the city?”

“He’s almost dead,” Thrask said quietly. Anders could see the regret in his eyes, the horror – he might know that the Anderfels stuff was a lie, but Anders could see he believed them about the mages.

“Could I—” Alain started, biting his lip. “I’d love to learn, ser, about the work you have to do, I know it’s— It’s horrible, but I want to… Could the Enchanter bring me back to the Circle?”

“Of course,” Hawke said smoothly, reaching to touch Alain’s shoulder. When Karras scowled, he said, “It’s good for a young man to see the horror that blood magic wreaks. Nothing like seeing the true horror it creates to put you off it, eh, Ser?”

“Yeah,” Karras murmured, shooting Alain a look of anger, as if he was already a blood mage himself. Anders grit his teeth.

Thrask and Karras went back, and Hawke said, “You’ll all escape together, then. Come on.”

\--

Later, Hawke sat beside Anders on the pallet that served as his bed in the clinic, his back against the wall, a bottle of whiskey loosely held in his hand. He was staring into space, his gaze faraway. His hands were sore, Anders knew that - he'd burned himself, healing Decimus, earlier, and Anders had rubbed elfroot balm onto the abused skin once they'd gotten home to the city.

“You saved almost all of them,” Anders said quietly. 

“We should have killed him,” Hawke murmured, taking a long sip of the whiskey.

“Thrask?”

“No. Karras. He’ll be trouble, he… You saw the way he looked at the kid, Alain? He hates mages. Hates them to the bone.” Hawke let out a low, bitter noise, and he held the base of the bottle against his forehead, and Anders saw the frost gather on the glass. “And the spirits I called on, with Decimus, they were… They were _sad_. A spirit of mercy was the one that healed his wounds. Knew it would kill him. _I_ knew it would kill him. That’s why I did it.”

Anders stared at Hawke’s handsome face – the face of a man who looked older than he was, in the same way Anders did, when he was unlucky enough to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror. 

He reached for Hawke’s hand. 

Hawke interlinked their fingers, and when he smiled, exhaustedly, Anders smiled back with the same fatigue. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq). I also run a no-drama Dragon Age Discord, which [you can join here.](https://discordapp.com/invite/ttgP5v8) Please comment if you can!


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